Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaeda mastermind said to be behind the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was killed this week at a security checkpoint in Mogadishu, Somalia, by government troops who didn't immediately realize he was the most wanted man in East Africa, officials said June 11. Mohammed, a native of the Comoros Islands, was carrying sophisticated weapons, maps and other "operational materials," as well as tens of thousands of dollars when he was killed, Somali Information Minister Abdulkareem Jama said. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, then on a visit to Tanzania, called the killing a "significant blow to al-Qaeda, its extremist allies, and its operations in East Africa."

A "peace caravan," which has spent a week travelling through Mexico to protest against drug-related violence and the "war on drugs," crossed the border into the US at Juárez-El Paso on June 11. Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, who led the National Citizen Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, appealed for a similar citizen mobilization in the US. "The US has a grave responsibility in all this, when its citizens remain silent, they are imposing war on us," said Sicilia, whose son was recently killed in drug-related violence. "Americans have to realize that behind every puff of pot, every line of coke there is death, there are shattered families." Sicilia and his convoy of about 20 vehicles began their journey in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City, and have criss-crossed the country, holding rallies against the escalating violence and militarization along the way. (RFI, Spain, June 12; BBC News, AP, June 11)

After a temporary suspension to allow for Peru's presidential elections to take place in the southern Puno region, local Aymara activists announced June 10 that they will resume their strike civil strike indefinitely, and thousands immediately joined roadblocks on the main highway to Bolivia near the border town of Desaguadero. The protesters are no longer just demanding cancellation of Bear Creek Mining's concession at the local Santa Ana Mining Camp and repeal of President Alan García's Supreme Decree 083-2007 of Nov. 29, 2007 which approved the project, but also the dropping of charges against numerous community leaders that have been brought following last month's unrest in the region. Aymara leader Walter Aduvirii pledged that the protest campaign will radicalize unless demands are met. The national government has agreed to open talks with the protesters, and 58 community leaders have been chosen from the Puno provinces of Chucuito and El Collao to travel to Lima this week to meet with members of the Council of Ministers, or cabinet. The government has agreed to a 14-month suspension of the Santa Ana project while talks proceed. (Mariátegui blog, June 11; RPP, La Republica, AFP, Global Voices, June 10; Los Andes, May 26)

Dozens of armed Israeli settlers on June 10 attacked residents of Qusra village in the northern West Bank, Palestinian officials told Ma'an News Agency. PA settlement affairs official Ghassan Doughlas said settlers beat several residents at the entrance of the village, south of Nablus, and smashed the windscreen of a truck belonging to a local. Doughlas said the settlers were from "illegal" outpost Alei Ayin, which the Israeli army recently evacuated. Settlers from the same outpost are suspected of torching and vandalizing a mosque near Ramallah days earlier. Meanwhile, in the nearby village Iraq Burin, Israeli forces used tear gas and stun grenades to break up a weekly anti-settlement protest, residents told Ma'an. (Maan News Agency, June 12)

Nearly 3,000 have crossed the border from Syria into Turkey in recent days as the Syrian army has moved to put down an uprising in the northern town of Jisr al-Shughur. The government alleges 120 of its soldiers were killed in the town last weekend, and it has since been flooded with 5,000 troops, backed up with several tanks. Large tent villages have been set up by refugees across the Turkish border. Meanwhile, Friday protests were held in over 50 cities and towns across the country June 10, according to a count by the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an umbrella opposition organization. In Deraa, security forces fired on protesters, wounding at least eight people, while in the town of Busra al-Harir government forces killed two protesters. (Foreign Policy, The Telegraph, June 10)

Rival rallies were held in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Friday June 10, as supporters and opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh gathered by the thousands just a few kilometers away from each other. Loyalists converged at Sabbeen Square to celebrate the news that Yemen's president was out of intensive care in Riyadh after treatment for bomb blast wounds. Opponents demanding that Saleh turn power over to a civilian transitional council simultaneoulsy converged on University Square—the symbolic heart of the protest movement, which has been renamed "Change Square" by the demonstrators who amass there each Friday. (Middle East Online, AlJazeera, RFE/RL, June 10) The previous day, fighting between Saleh-loyalist troops and tribesmen who have thrown in their lot with the protest movement in the southern city of Taez left seven dead. (Middle East Online, June 9) In Washington meanwhile, CIA director Leon Panetta said that the US has not halted cooperation with the embattled Yemeni regime. "While obviously it's a scary and uncertain situation, with regards to counterterrorism we're still very much continuing our operations," Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee. (Middle East Online, June 10)

From the Movement for Democratic Socialism (MDS), Tokyo, June 10:

It will soon be three months since the Eastern Japan catastrophic earthquake and tsunami broke out and the successive Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster was triggered. We are grateful to all of you for the messages and largesse you have sent us from many parts of the world to encourage us in our efforts to gain democratic recovery from the disaster and the total abolishment of nuclear power plants. We, once again, express our profound gratitude. As for the donations, we are making full use of them in our activities to help reconstruct the disaster-stricken communities. Let us now turn to how we, MDS, are campaigning against nuclear power plants.

Soldiers on patrol in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Camargo, Tamaulipas, discovered a warehouse where two armor-plated "tanks" were being constructed after clashing with gunmen said to belong to the Gulf Cartel, a military source said June 6. Two of the gunmen were killed in a firefight, while two hid inside the warehouse. Authorities said the tanks—actually big trucks fitted with steel plates—were to patrol smuggling routes to the US. Officials said their armour could only be breached with anti-tank grenades. Mexican authorities say they have discovered more than 100 such improvised "narco-tanks" in recent months, which the media have dubbed 'Los Monstruos," or the Monsters. Last month police in Jalisco found a 2011 Ford F-Series Super Duty Truck with steel armor plates welded to almost its entire exterior, along with a folding battering ram on the front bumper. The homemade armored vehicle also had gun ports and a rotating turret. The tank was found abandoned in a rural area contested by the warring Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion. (Poder 360, June 7; BBC News, AFP, June 6)